


every day a little death

by Jadewhisper



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Light Angst, Mentions of Death, it's sad boy hours in the woods, lots of personal headcanons going on here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-14
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27555862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadewhisper/pseuds/Jadewhisper
Summary: The tragedy of the Subcon Kingdom weighs heavily on the one trying to pick up the pieces
Comments: 9
Kudos: 25





	every day a little death

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this was an rp starter for a short little thing me and my girlfriend was doing. But APPARENTLY it was just so good that I got lightly bullied into posting it. So here you go!

A lone shadow slipped away from a group of spirits, stumbling through the trees until finding a spot to collapse.

It wasn't that he didn't want to be around the children. Simply that... sometimes he needed a minute to himself.

This past... year? Two years? Maybe even three? He couldn't tell; the days and nights blurred together with the somber darkness that settled over the forest, and all the work that needed done.

So much work needed to be done.

The children, bless them, but they took a lot out of him. Luka was only one man. One man _desperately_ trying to care for them all as trauma and pain was on the forefront of everyone's mind. He still didn't understand why he was the only adult to come back. He had his theories, but no answers.

The children were all wearing their masks. As was tradition. The masks granted them protection from the forest. Maybe not everyone believed that the forest was a living thing anymore, but tradition was tradition. Children wore masks based on the ancient dweller magic, and the forest looked after them.

Perhaps when the day it happened, the forest had attempted to protect the children. Sent out energy to shield from the disaster. The forest had tried its best. But instead of being saved, the children found themselves lingering. Attached to the magic that tried to save them, perhaps. Or maybe drawn to it.

The forest _tried,_ and Luka couldn't fault it for that. It was simply difficult to try to care for an entire kingdom's worth of children all alone.

He was different of course. Dying slowly and alone in a cellar instead of the swift and terrifying death everyone else in Subcon had. Perhaps in being so prolonged, that's what caused his spirit to linger.

_Perhaps it was being betrayed by the one he loved most in the world._

Luka quietly cinched his cloak around himself as quiet tears trailed down his face. The children were his responsibility now. The forest couldn't take care of them. The forest seemed to be as dead as the rest of them, even. Perhaps that was why the kingdom had gone dark. Luka could relate.

Breathing wasn't necessary, but the motion of it still soothed him. Luka counted slowly as he mimicked his way through deep breathing, trying to gather himself.

There was still work to do. There was always work to do. Areas to warm, places to unearth, supplies to scavenge, bodies to bury-

A sob broke free of him, and he knew there was no going back from that point. 

So, so many bodies to bury. Faces he knew. People he befriended. 

_Children._

Children, still wearing their masks as they were now eternally stuck to their faces. Luka felt guilty over being relieved he didn't have to see the fear etched out in the young ones like the others.

Unearthing the children's village had been the hardest thing he had done since fleeing his body back at the manor. So many children... And the spirits left behind more often than not, unable to recognize themselves. 

Luka buried them all himself. He couldn't ask the children to help. Not that many of them could. But there were a good few now that he had painstakingly made bodies for, bound them to with the use of his bizarre magic. 

They were always so relieved to have bodies again, however fragile and poorly put together. Cloth was the only thing he had found that would work. And sewing was a new skill he only just started to learn. But it was something. And he would slowly get better at it. 

There were so many more little plush bodies to make... not everyone seemed to want one yet, but he still felt overwhelmed. At least the little ones with new bodies volunteered to help with whatever they could. He was grateful for their help.

But there were still a few things they couldn't help him with.

Burying bodies. He couldn't ask that of them. Too cruel, too sad.

Warming places. His presence had some sort of an effect. The snow and ice was slowly pushing back, little by little each day. It helped if he stayed in the area. Helped if he flexed his magic.

But magic was exhausting even as a ghost. He only had so much at a time it seemed. He thought it would take a million years to clear the snow and ice out of the forest. 

Sharp teeth he's still not quite used to worry his bottom lip as he continues to cry. Oh, how he thought wrong. It would be a good thing, if it wasn't for the price.

He still remembered the look on the first man's face. It was a regular merchant, traveling to sell to the town. Confused by the out of place winter. When the man saw Luka, he thought he was a monster. Luka had panicked. He hadn't meant to harm him. And yet the result was what it was. A soul ripped out of its body. A soul, so warm and bright and tempting. An instinct he would never forgive himself for following.

The man died the second he swallowed his soul, and there was nothing that could be done about it.

But it fueled him. Like fueling a fire. 

So Luka made the hardest choice. 

He would keep doing this. He needed to. For the children. He had to take care of them. Protect them. He needed the energy to do that. He needed magic.

The man had been right after all. Luka truly was a monster. He was letting it happen. 

He could not unmake his choice. Wouldn't if he could. He was doing this for the children. But sometimes the stress and the weariness was too much, and the self loathing slipped in to chew away at him until he needed to run off and hide from them all. 

He tried so hard to pull himself together, but tonight, like every other night, he got lost in his thoughts until he broke down. And here he was, sobbing into his hands in the middle of the forest all alone.

**Author's Note:**

> You get ten internet points if you can tell who's ideas inspired mine


End file.
